


Class Notes

by ordinaryorbit



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-26 07:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20021797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinaryorbit/pseuds/ordinaryorbit
Summary: Sonny meets someone from Barba's past.  It changes their present.





	1. Chapter 1

"Hey there, Counselor!"

Sonny cut through the morning foot traffic to make his way over to Barba, who was sitting somewhat pensively on a bench in the hallway of the DA's office.

"Good morning, Carisi. What brings you to my neck of the woods?"

"I was coming to see you actually, to drop off our DD-5's from the Morrisey case." Sonny held out the manila folder to the ADA, who accepted it with some reluctance. No one really liked getting more paperwork.

"Still the squad's errand boy, I see?"

"For now at least. Do you have court this morning, Counselor?" Barba was wearing what was definitely one of his court suits, made of a luxurious textured fabric with a matching vest, and offset by the silkiest of pocket squares.

"No, I've been summoned for a meeting with the new EADA," Barba said with a nod to the nameplate on the nearest door. 

"Oh right, Jeff Milburn, he's the transfer from LA. I heard that he went to Harvard too. Did you know him in law school?"

"Unfortunately I did. Intimately so. We were in the same class."

_Unfortunately?_ Before Sonny could ask what Barba meant by that, the door opened and a tall man stepped out.

"Rafael, it's been a long time."

"Yes it has, Jeff," Barba replied coolly.

"You're looking very sharp, Rafael. Lovely suit you've got." Milburn grasped one of Barba's lapels between his fingers, then leaned in as if to examine the quality of the fabric.

Barba flinched slightly at the hands-on inspection, but stood unwavering until Milburn backed away.

"And who is your dashing companion?"

It took Sonny a moment to realize that the EADA was talking about him.

"Oh, I'm Dominick Carisi, but please call me Sonny."

"Carisi is a detective with SVU," Barba added as explanation. 

"Perfect, why don't you join us, Detective?"

As Sonny opened his mouth to accept the invitation, Barba cut in. "Carisi was just passing through. I think he's quite busy today with casework so unfortunately he won't be able to stay."

Sonny just nodded. It was always better not to cross Barba.

"This will only take a few minutes, so I insist you join us," Milburn said in a definitive tone that allowed for no argument.

"Well if it's only for a few minutes, I guess there's no harm. . . "

Barba shot him a glare as they were ushered into the office.

Milburn settled himself in the chair behind his desk. There were two chairs in front of it, but they were both stacked high with files. Milburn made no move to clear off the chairs or give his guests leave to do so. 

And so Sonny and Barba were forced to stand awkwardly in front of the desk. That was a power move right there for sure. Sonny was starting to see why Barba didn't like the guy.

Barba cleared his throat. "What did you want to see me about?" Direct and to the point.

The EADA sat back in his chair and laced his hands behind his head, as if he had all the time in the world. He swiveled slightly so that he was facing Sonny.

"Did you know, Detective Carisi, that Rafael and I went to law school together?"

"Um, I did, Barba was just telling me about how you were in the same class."

"Back when I knew him at Harvard, Rafael didn't own two thousand dollar suits."

Sonny slid a glance over at Barba, whose jaw was clenched. 

"Sometimes he even wore ratty t-shirts and jeans, when he was working. Rafael had a job cleaning dorm rooms to make extra cash. I guess those scholarships don't cover everything."

Barba's hands were gripping the chair back in front of him now, knuckles turning white. Sonny waited for the ADA to unleash one of his customary verbal tongue lashings, but he remained silent.

"At least scrubbing floors was good practice for mopping up messes in the courtroom." Milburn chuckled a bit at his own joke.

Sonny couldn't hold himself back any longer. He had to say something.

"Well I don't think there's anything wrong with doing some manual labor to get through school. It's something to be celebrated, not looked down upon."

Milburn gave a smirk. "Sure, it's commendable." 

There was something almost mocking in his tone. Sonny didn't know what else to do, so as usual, he just kept talking.

"I mean I understand what it's like, I'm going to law school nights while working SVU during the days." Though honestly with the hours that SVU kept, he'd been working his fair share of nights as well.

"Ah so you're a lawyer in training, Detective." Milburn leaned forward with interest. Sonny was glad the focus was off Barba, who was still silently seething beside him.

"Yes. I'm in the evening program at Fordham."

"Well then I'm glad you're here, you may be interested in what I wanted to meet about. I've started doing a study of conviction rates across all bureaus of the DA's office. From my initial research it appears that SVU has one of the lowest conviction rates."

"That's because sex crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute," Barba said, finally speaking up. "SVU pursues investigations that other units might not. And I've been bringing cases that test the boundaries of the law, so of course our conviction rate is going to be lower."

"Be that as it may," Milburn said dismissively, "I'm establishing conviction benchmarks to try to instill best practices. I wanted to put you on notice of that."

"Jeff, that approach just isn't going to work with SVU."

"Well I don't think that's really your decision to make Rafael, now is it?"

Less than five minutes later, Sonny found himself and Barba deposited back in the hallway without ever even having sat down. The ADA stalked off down the corridor.

"Unbelievable," Barba was muttering to himself as Sonny caught up to him.

"I know, right? The attitude on that guy was ridiculous."

"I'm not talking about Milburn," Barba said sharply. "His attitude, while despicable, is wholly believable to me. I'm talking about you, Detective." 

"Me? What did I do?"

"Your little soliloquoy on the nobility of manual labor was completely uncalled for."

Sonny felt incensed. Here he was trying to do Barba a solid, and all he got in return was criticism.

"Oh right, because you were doing such a good job of sticking up for yourself. Yeah, that deafening silence was really effective, Counselor."

"Well I didn't need you sticking up for me!" 

Some of the passersby in the hallway turned their heads at Barba's elevated tone. The ADA lowered it to an angry whisper as he continued.

"Milburn was trying to rile me up, Carisi. The most effective thing I could have done was to ignore him. And the last thing I needed was the added humiliation of having my honor defended by, of all people, an unpolished junior detective slash night-school poser." 

Sonny stopped, stunned. 

"Carisi, wait, I didn't really mean- "

"I think it's clear what you meant. I should go. I'm sorry for crashing your meeting, Counselor."

Sonny blinked back the beginnings of tears as he walked briskly back to the precinct. He would not allow himself to get upset just because Barba said something mean to him. It wasn't like his sense of self-worth depended on Barba's approval.

Except it did, at least in part, he admitted to himself as he went about the rest of his day. And he thought he had been making strides in earning Barba's respect, in being more than the klutzy new detective.

The afternoon brought with it a pile of overdue paperwork. The tedious task gave Sonny plenty of time to think back on the events of the morning. Not only about Barba's parting words, but about the way that Milburn had treated the ADA. It still made Sonny's stomach clench to think about. 

It was understandable, Barba's displeasure that Sonny had been present for his dressing down. Maybe Sonny shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have gotten involved. But there was surely no need for Barba to dress him down too.

In last week's Practical Lawyering seminar, Sonny's class had discussed how to address conflict in the professional context. The instructor had recommended a direct and pragmatic approach.

Maybe that was the approach that Sonny should take with Barba. With the addition of pastry, he decided. That hadn't been on the course syllabus as a conflict resolution method. But Barba had a sweet tooth, and so a little dessert might at least make him willing to talk.

When Sonny stopped by at the end of his shift, Barba was his desk, scotch in hand and eyes staring off at some indeterminate spot on the wall. His gaze focused once he registered Sonny standing in the doorway.

"Detective, I wasn't expecting to see you this evening."

"Can I come in for a minute, Counselor?"

"Please do. And take a seat, I won't keep you standing like our friend from earlier today."

Carisi settled himself in a chair across from Barba and placed the small box he'd brought with him on the desk. 

"What's this?"

"A slice of ricotta pie."

"If that's an apology pie, Carisi, I think I'm the one who should be apologizing to you after what I said this morning."

"It's not an apology pie - it's more of a peace offering. Look Counselor, I get that you have some sort of baggage with Milburn, and that I stuck myself in the middle of things this morning. I'm sorry for interfering. But I'm not sorry for being me."

Barba drained his glass, as if preparing himself to speak. Sonny quickly continued so that he could get out everything that he wanted to say.

"I know I'm still the newest member of the squad, and I'm still a ways away from becoming an actual lawyer. I don't mind getting teased about those things. But I think I've proven myself enough by now to be treated as a colleague, and not like I'm an embarrassment to you."

Barba nodded.

"Point taken, Carisi. And just for the record, I don't think you're an embarrassment. What I said had more to do with being pissed off at Jeff than anything else. . . "

"You don't have to explain yourself to me, Counselor. But you might want to try that ricotta pie, because it's one of the best you can get in the city."

"That's a big claim, Detective. Do you have research to back it up?"

"Yeah, my research being that I had a slice myself at the shop while I was picking yours up."

Barba opened the box and gave a pleased smile at the pastry inside. 

"Thank you for this Carisi. Would you like some scotch?" Apparently Barba could make a peace offering too.

"Sure." Sonny took the glass of amber liquid and threw it back, aiming for the same casual ease with which Barba had downed his own. Instead, he sputtered and coughed as the scotch burned a path down his throat.

"Are you ok there, Carisi?" Barba looked equal parts alarmed and amused.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Sonny managed as he tried to get his coughing under control. "Just didn't expect it to be quite so strong is all."

"Not really a hard liquor man, are we Detective?" A hint of a smile played at the corner of Barba's mouth. Now he was all amusement, apparently having satisfied himself that Sonny was not going to require the Heimlich maneuver. 

"I guess I'm more used to beer." Sonny could feel his cheeks burning red. God, how embarrassing this was. He finally had the opportunity to show Barba that he deserved the ADA's time, and he couldn't even handle a drink.

"A piece of advice from someone who's been there - the more alcohol you've got in your system, the less you feel it burn." Barba unscrewed the scotch bottle and began to pour them refills, as if to illustrate his point.

Several drinks, a slice of ricotta pie and an hour later, they had both migrated to the couch. Well, Barba was on the couch. Sonny was sitting on the floor, his back propped against it as he contemplated the ADA. Barba had downed two rounds of scotch for each of Sonny's, and he seemed to be feeling the effects. 

Sonny couldn't remember ever seeing Barba like this, just on the sloppy side of tipsy, sprawled on his back with his vest undone. It was intriguing. Intriguing in the sense that Sonny needed to figure out what was behind the ADA's uncharacteristic behavior.

He shifted so that he could rest his arms on the couch, propping his chin on top of them. "Hey Counselor, can I ask what the occasion is?"

"What's that, Carisi?" Barba muttered, placing a hand over his eyes to block out the light.

"You know, _this_, spending your nonexistent free time getting wasted in your office with an underling detective. It just doesn't seem like your normal Thursday night routine."

Barba removed the hand from his eyes and scowled down at him. "We are not wasted, Detective. At least I certainly am not. And didn't you just give me a lecture about not treating you like an underling?"

Classic deflection.

"Does it have anything to do with Milburn? The two of you had a really tense vibe going on today."

Barba went silent for a minute, then sighed. He rolled onto his side so that he was facing Sonny. "Very astute of you, Carisi."

"Well they don't call me Detective for nothing."

"Don't get too puffed up about your detective skills. I'm only telling you this because I'm drunk."

"Oh are you? I thought you said you weren't wasted." Sonny surely wouldn't have dared to rib Barba like this when they were both sober, but somehow it seemed permissible right now.

"Well played, Carisi. Anyway, remember how I said that Milburn and I knew each other intimately at Harvard? I meant it in the literal sense of the word."

"In the literal . . . _oh_."

For the fact that his brain was sluggish in piecing it together, Sonny blamed the scotch. Which he also blamed for the flush that he could feel spreading across his face at the thought of the staid ADA being intimate with anyone. 

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about it before. It being what kind of person Barba would go home to, if Barba stopped working long enough to go home to someone. It was surely none of Sonny's business. 

"So the two of you were, like, boyfriends in law school?"

Barba snorted. "Boyfriends? No. It was certainly nothing public, given our career aspirations and the climate at the time. Besides, there were no feelings involved, and no commitment. We slept together off and on for most of our first year, and that was it. Casual."

"And at the end of that first year, things just . . . petered out?" Sonny persisted. 

"Something like that." Barba's face clouded over, closing off.

"Well I can see what you saw in him." Sonny was only a bit ashamed to be using a standard interrogation tactic. When your subject starts to get skittish, back off so they lose their guard before circling in again. "He's a good-looking guy."

"Hmm you think so?" Barba replied noncommittally. 

"Yeah. I mean, he's tall and handsome, can't go wrong with that."

"Well he seemed quite interested in _you_, Carisi. You should be careful there. Milburn has a reputation for collecting bright young things and then spitting them out like trash."

Sonny took his opening. "Is that what happened between the two of you?"

Barba's eyes widened at the bold question, and for a moment Sonny thought the ADA was going to kick him out of his office. But Barba just sighed.

"Something like that. Though we were both bright young things back then."

Sonny felt a twinge of regret for pushing Barba to open up.

"You don't have to tell me about what happened. I shouldn't have pried."

Barba raised a brow. "A little late for that now isn't it, Mr. Twenty Questions? Don't think I missed that you were just honing your investigative skills on me."

Sonny scrubbed a hand over his face, embarrassed. "Yeah I think my detective work has become a little too much second nature, and has basically ruined me for other social interaction. Last week I interrogated my sister about taking the last calzone."

Barba threw back his head with a laugh at that. Sonny felt a small thrill run through him at the knowledge that he had provided Barba some levity. 

"Well that's something you're going to want to work on, Carisi, unless you want to piss off all your family and friends with your interrogative conversations. But honestly I don't mind telling you, it wasn't even a big deal."

"If you're sure."

"At that time Harvard Law was cutthroat. It was every man for himself. No one shared their study guides, lest you give another student an advantage. But Jeff partied too hard spring semester to prepare his own study materials."

"Let me guess. He asked you for yours?"

"Yes. He said that since we were together, it would be wrong for us not to help each other. Basically guilt-tripped me into sharing with him. The day after I let him make copies, he ended things between us. He didn't need any distractions, he said. And I apparently was one."

"Ouch. That's cold."

What Sonny left unsaid was that for there to have been anything to end, there must have been something there to begin with. Something that on Barba's part, at least, must have been more than casual. Something that involved feelings.

"So that's basically how things ended between us, and why I hold no fondness for the man," Barba concluded.

What it didn't explain was Milburn's overt attempts to shame Barba in front of Sonny.

"If I can put on my detective hat for one more question, Counselor, why does Milburn seem to hold a grudge against you?"

"That's because of what happened next. We both applied for Law Review our first year, and the results came out right after exams. I made the cut and Jeff didn't. He took it personally."

"That's ridiculous. It's not like it was your fault that he wasn't good enough."

"That would certainly be the rational way of looking at the situation. But Jeff seemed to feel that I had taken his deserved spot. _Boys from the Bronx aren't Law Review material._"

"What a jerk."

"I know. I still can't get over the irony of Jeff needing my study notes to pass his exams and then having the audacity to say I didn't merit a place on Law Review."

"Well at the end of the day, you made it on Law Review and Milburn didn't," Sonny said in an attempt at consolation.

Barba took another swig of scotch, directly from the bottle this time. 

"At the end of the day he made EADA and I have to report to him. All evidence indicates that he's going to make my life miserable."

Sonny had comforted his share of histrionic Carisi family members and tearful victims over the years. But never before had he needed to comfort a morose ADA who, to be honest, still scared him a little bit. He settled for reaching up to awkwardly pat Barba on the shoulder.

"Hey Barba, is it ok that I agreed to be on Milburn's committee? I couldn't come up with a reason to say no."

"You don't need my blessing, Carisi."

"I know, but the guy's basically your nemesis, so it feels kind of like a betrayal to work on something with him."

"While I appreciate your loyalty, Carisi, it's fine. You couldn't have declined without it becoming a thing."

"I guess." Sonny still wasn't convinced.

"Actually," Barba said, eyes lighting up a bit, "maybe this is a good thing. You can be my eyes and ears and keep tabs on Milburn for me."

"Sure. Yeah. I can do that."

"It'll be like a spy movie, and you're the double agent," Barba mused as he stretched out to his full length on the couch.

Ok this must be the scotch talking, because Sonny had never heard Barba compare their work to an action movie before.

"Counselor, I think maybe you've had enough for tonight." He carefully pried the bottle from Barba's hand and set it on the table. "How about I call you a cab and we get you home?"

"I don't need any help getting home," Barba huffed as he struggled to right himself. He began trying to button his vest back up, but his fingers lacked the coordination. He finally got some of the buttons into holes, but they were the wrong ones.

"Here, let me."

Sonny stilled Barba's hands and began undoing the mismatched buttons so that he could do the vest up properly. Barba relaxed under his ministrations, sinking deeper into his scotch-induced fog.

"You're a good person, Carisi. You know that, right? I'm honored that you stood up for me today."

"Let's not go and say things that you'll regret once you're sober. You wouldn't want to be too nice to me."

"I think I always want to be nice to you."

"Well you've got a funny way of showing it," Sonny muttered to himself as he helped Barba to his feet. "And I think that this nonsense you're spouting is a sign that we really do need to get you home."

"It's not nonsense," Barba insisted, argumentative even when tipsy.

"Whatever you say." Sonny shook his head, but he couldn't help smiling to himself at the prickly ADA's fond tone.


	2. Chapter 2

"Three whole days and the lot of you can't find me a single piece of admissible evidence?"

Barba was fuming, more than usual. Maybe the stress of having Milburn as the new EADA was getting to him. Hands on hips, he was berating the squad for their lack of a breakthrough on their current case. 

Sonny's attention drifted. This was the first time he had seen Barba since the ADA's scotch-soaked stupor. Would Barba want to talk about it? Or would he pretend like the evening had never happened? 

Since that night, Sonny had found himself trying to imagine a young law school Barba. Somehow he had always thought of Barba as having emerged from the womb fully formed, as a sarcastic legal encyclopedia encased in silk and herringbone. But now that he had learned some bits and pieces about Barba's earlier life, he wanted to know more.

". . . . and so I expect you all to do your jobs and get us some results."

Barba was wrapping up now, and so Sonny snapped himself back to attention. Rollins and Fin were shooting daggers at the ADA, while Benson started giving him an earful about his unrealistic expectations.

"I've said all there is to say about it," he responded. "I get that it's not a walk in the park, but I can't bring charges unless we have something more to go on."

"Thank you for enlightening us about the basic principles of criminal justice," Rollins muttered under her breath.

"Walk me out, Detective?" Barba said with a nod at Sonny, ignoring the remark. 

"Oooh summoned to the principal's office. Someone's in trouble!" Amanda called out after him.

"No one's in trouble, Rollins," Barba snipped at her. "I just want to make sure Carisi doesn't screw up his testimony in the Hennessy trial this week."

As he followed Barba out of the squad room, Sonny wracked his brain about what Barba could want to review with him. 

"Did I mess up on something during our trial prep last week, Counselor?" he asked as they made their way to the elevator.

"That's not what I actually wanted to talk to you about," Barba said with a hint of exasperation, as if it were obvious that what he had said wasn't what he meant.

"Oh."

"By the way, do you all really refer to going to see me as going to the principal's office?"

"Um, only when you yell at us, like today."

"I was not yelling," Barba protested, his raised voice undermining his credibility on that point.

Sonny decided not to argue with him about it. "So what did you want to speak to me about, then?"

"About what happened the other night."

Ah, so they _were_ going to talk about it.

"But first," Barba said, "I need more caffeine." He paused at the coffee cart outside the building. "Would you like some, Carisi?"

"Nah I'm good for coffee. But I think I'm gonna get myself a hot dog." 

The hot dog cart was conveniently located next to the coffee cart. Sonny ate there at least once a week. He signaled to the vendor to prepare him his usual order.

Barba looked mildly scandalized. "You're having a hot dog at ten in the morning? We're clearly still in the breakfast portion of the day."

Sonny shrugged. "Well I've been working for two hours already, so I need something substantial. Plus, if we're gonna be technical about it, a hotdog meets the definition of a breakfast sandwich. It's processed meat on bread, thus a sandwich, and I'm having it for breakfast. Ergo, a breakfast sandwich."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sonny bit his lip. Shit, why did he just talk back like that to Barba? Especially since the ADA was already in a mood. This was surely going to lead to another scolding. 

But Barba just gave him a small smirk.

"Trying out your powers of persuasion, I see. That night school of yours must be teaching you something, Detective, because you almost have me convinced a hot dog can be a breakfast sandwich."

"You want one too then, Counselor, to wash down your coffee with?"

"Good God, no. I am not placing my stomach at the mercy of some mystery sidewalk meat."

The hotdog vendor looked up from preparing Sonny's order, eyeing Barba suspiciously. "Are you trying to say something about my hot dog stand, mister?"

Before Barba could say something else incendiary, Sonny held up his hand to placate the hot dog man.

"I apologize sir, he really didn't mean any offense."

"Actually I did," Barba retorted with a scowl at Sonny, presumably for speaking on his behalf. "This cart looks like it's a bout of food poisoning waiting to happen."

"Hey that was just one time, and the health department gave me my permit back last month." The hot dog man was gesticulating with his tongs now, pointing them at Barba.

"Here, keep the change." Sonny grabbed his hotdog with one hand and Barba's elbow with the other, using it to steer him gently away from further conflict. They began to walk in the direction of Barba's office. 

"So you wanted to talk about the other night?"

"Yes. I'm a bit embarrassed, Carisi, that I needed your help getting home. It's been awhile since I drank that much."

"Well I did take an oath to protect and serve. Though I think I missed the class at the academy about dealing with your ADA's exes."

"Cheeky," Barba admonished, though the corners of his mouth turned up. 

"Actually," he continued, "that's what I wanted to talk to you about. The morning after, in the cold harsh light of my hangover, I remembered that I asked you to keep tabs on Jeff for me."

"Oh, yeah. I'm happy to do it. I've got your back, Barba. But I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to do any recon yet."

Sonny felt as if he had somehow failed Barba in this regard. But the ADA was quick to shake his head.

"I appreciate your willingness to _have my back_, as you put it. But it was inappropriate of me to ask you to get involved in an issue between me and my ex. So let's just drop the whole idea." 

"No."

Sonny surprised himself with the forcefulness of his reply. 

"Oh really?" 

Barba seemed surprised as well. Usually, after all, Sonny deferred to his wishes.

But this double agent operation seemed like SVU's best shot at thwarting Milburn's interference, as well as Sonny's best shot at getting himself into Barba's good graces. Besides, he didn't want to give up a chance to find out more about what young Barba had been like. And surely with his detective skills he could get Milburn to spill about Barba's law school days. Call it being a triple agent, if you will.

"Look, from what Milburn said, it sounds like he's gonna be targeting all of SVU, not just you. With his conviction rate initiative, he could make us change everything about the way we do our work. So the way I see it, it would be irresponsible of us _not_ to keep tabs on him."

Barba fiddled with the lid of his coffee cup, as if he were considering the pros and cons.

"Fine," he said finally, looking up. "Just don't do anything obvious, like you're fishing for information."

"Don't worry," Sonny promised, "I'll bring my best undercover skills. Now we just need a code name for our mission."

Barba shook his head emphatically. "Absolutely not, Carisi. We are not picking out a code name. And this is not a _mission_, for God's sake. We are merely keeping ourselves apprised of developments in the DA's office that could impact SVU cases."

"Hey you're the one who said that I could be a double agent."

Without quite meaning to, Sonny bumped Barba's shoulder with his own as he spoke. It was the type of playful thing he would do with one of his sisters when they were teasing one another. Surprisingly, the ADA returned the gesture, leaning back into him as they walked.

"I said that after having too much scotch, Carisi. I wasn't being serious."

"Well that doesn't mean it wasn't a valid idea."

He was met with an eye roll. "Yes, because all the great advancements in civilization came out of inebriation."

Sonny decided that the best strategy was simply to ignore Barba's resistance and forge ahead.

"A good code name should always have some significance. Maybe we should pick something related to law school, since that's where you and Milburn met."

He paused for a moment to think up a suggestion. Maybe if it were something blatantly unsuitable, he could get Barba to bite. "Ok, I've got it. How about _caselaw_?"

Barba gave him a withering glance.

"No, we use that word all the time at work. How would we know whether it was being used as the code name or for another purpose? The code name has to be something that is not in our daily lexicon."

Sonny grinned. "Ok, so you reject the specific suggestion but you accept the overall premise of a code name?"

"I never said I accepted the premise," Barba countered.

"Yes you did, you just said that the code name should be a word that we don't use everyday. If you're squabbling over what the code name should be, then you've conceded that we need one."

Barba opened his mouth to argue back, but then seemed to register that he had, for once, been outwitted. He gave Sonny an approving nod.

"Cheeky _and_ clever today."

"How about _bookbag_ for the code name? Also law school related, but we don't use the word everyday."

"Fine," Barba sighed. "You can have your code name. Just don't expect me to use this ridiculous system. And don't hold me to any other ideas I had when I was drunk."

"Oh, so then you're taking back what you said that night about wanting to be nice to me?"

Barba arched an eyebrow. "Why would I say I wanted to be nice to you? You're my favorite target in the squad room."

"I know, I was as surprised as you are. But you were pretty adamant about it."

"Well that was the scotch talking. Don't think that I'm going to go around actually being nice to you."

They had reached Barba's building and were now lingering on the pavement outside. Suddenly, Sonny caught sight of a tall form coming down the steps of the building.

"Bookbag at twelve o'clock," he hissed.

"What?"

"Bookbag at twelve o'clock."

"Carisi, what are you talking about?"

"It's Milburn - he's coming towards us."

"Well why couldn't you have just said that? - oh hi Jeff." Barba plastered a tight-lipped smile on his face. He was clearly going for the polite approach to this interaction.

"Hi Rafael, and Detective . . ."

"Carisi," Sonny provided.

"Of course, how could I forget. You seem to always be where Rafael is."

There was an insinuation embedded in the statement, but Sonny couldn't figure out what exactly it was.

"I was just going over some trial pointers with Carisi," Barba explained.

"Isn't that considerate, offering the wisdom of your experience." The words were heavy with a sort sarcasm. "Speaking of experience, you know you're starting to get a few gray hairs there Rafael. Must be the stress of your win-loss ratio."

By the set of Barba's jaw and the glint in his eye, Sonny could tell that the ADA was about to throw all pretense of politeness out the window. 

"No, Jeff, it's all the insipid conversations I've been having lately. And you know what, I can feel another gray hair coming on right now as a matter of fact."

Milburn absorbed the zinger with a blank face. But Sonny had a feeling he was just saving his reaction for later. The man had the calculated smoothness of someone who planned their every move.

For now, his move was to look Sonny over with a sort of bored interest.

"Can I borrow your detective for a bit, Rafael? I'm taking a coffee break and would love to get him up to speed on my conviction rate committee."

"Well Detective Carisi is not my property, so I'll let him answer for himself." For the first time ever Barba sounded irritated on behalf of rather than because of Sonny.

This was the perfect opportunity to start his mission, but Sonny found himself hesitating to abandon his ADA. 

"Um, sure, I guess, unless you need me for more trial prep Barba?"

"No, you should go," Barba said. "But just remember . . . to come back for your bookbag. You left it in my office, and I'm sure you'll need it for your classes."

Barba grimaced a bit as he spoke, as if it physically pained him to willingly use the code name.

Sonny smiled triumphantly at him. He had known that the code name would be a good idea. "Will do, Counselor."

Operation Bookbag was commenced.


	3. Chapter 3

"Would you like some coffee, Detective?" Milburn asked. The coffee cart outside the DA's office was surprisingly similar to the one outside the precinct.

"No thanks, I think I'm sufficiently caffeinated for the day." What was it with these lawyers and their insatiable need for coffee?

Sonny was starting to feel peckish again, though. Luckily there was a pretzel cart right beside the coffee cart. He bought himself a nice warm pretzel with mustard. 

Milburn gave the pretzel a raised eyebrow but refrained from commenting on it. Instead he indicated a stone ledge at the side of the building where they could sit while they drank and ate.

"I see you're hard at work with Rafael today," Milburn commented once they had settled themselves.

"Yeah he's SVU's go-to ADA, so we work together a lot," Sonny said innocently, as if he and Barba hadn't just been plotting against Milburn. "Plus he lets me tag along sometimes so I can ask him my law school questions." 

"How generous of him." Milburn's tone indicated that he didn't find Barba very generous at all.

"Speaking of law school, what was Barba like when he was in school?" No harm in getting one of Sonny's personal questions in there right off the bat.

"He was brilliant," Milburn acknowledged. "But also insufferable. Whenever the professor asked an impossible question, you could count on Rafael raising his hand, ready to show up the rest of the class."

Well that was just Barba being better prepared than everyone else, Sonny thought. Nothing wrong with that.

"And he was just as bad outside of the classroom," Milburn continued. "Always monopolizing the conversation."

Sonny decided he had to play along a bit if he was going to ingratiate himself with the EADA.

"Yeah Barba's like that now as well. Whenever he comes into the squad room, we can barely get a word in edgewise."

The fact that it was partially true did little to allay Sonny's guilt at criticizing Barba. But it seemed to be working, because Milburn was nodding his head in agreement.

"Yes, that certainly sounds like Rafael. In my experience, there's only one foolproof way to shut him up. Can't really mouth off with a mouth stuffed full of dick."

Even his best undercover training couldn't save Sonny from choking on his pretzel at the casual vulgarity.

Milburn gave a satisfied smile at his reaction.

"Don't act so shocked, Detective. I assume Rafael's already told you that we used to fuck in law school?"

Sonny nodded, still unable to speak.

"Then have I upset your sensitive sensibilities with my language? I would've presumed that working SVU would have toughened you up."

There was a hint of a challenge, as if Milburn was trying to goad Sonny into engaging in his coarse banter to prove his worth.

What Sonny really wanted to say was: _I presumed that as an EADA you would have known better than to have an explicit conversation about one co-worker with another co-worker._

But there was a mission at stake, which a blatantly confrontational reply would have derailed. And so Sonny charted a middle path.

"I'm not shocked, I just don't think we should talk about Barba like that. It's not professional."

Milburn smirked. "That's fine, we can do it your way. Though really, Detective, are you one to talk about being professional with Rafael?"

"Pardon?"

Sonny could feel control of the situation slipping through his fingers. How was he going to carry out his mission if he couldn't tell what the heck his mark was talking about?

His mark who even now was continuing to speak in enigmas.

"Do you really think that you and Rafael are being subtle, Detective?"

Subtle about what??? Sonny thought back to what Milburn had said when he first came down the steps: _You seem to always be where Rafael is._ His hand clutched the remaining half of his pretzel as the implication became clear.

"I think you must have gotten the wrong impression about my relationship with Barba, Counselor. We're just colleagues."

Milburn took a long slow sip of his coffee, head tilted back for effect, making Sonny wait for his reply. The guy must be a master of suspense in the courtroom.

"So Rafael mentors all his junior detectives, then?"

"Oh, no, not exactly, it's just that I'm the only one on the squad who's in law school. . . and honestly it's more like tolerating me than mentoring me."

"Oh is that what he's doing to you?"

"It's not like that," Sonny protested, shaking his head to underscore the point.

With his persistent questions, Milburn seemed to be on his own mission - namely to dig up dirt on Barba. Not that he would find any where Sonny was concerned. It was ridiculous, really, for anyone to think there was something going on between them.

Sonny had to get the conversation back on track.

"Counselor, I was hoping you could explain to me some more about this committee of yours. I've never been a part of anything like this before - it's an honor to be asked - so I'm afraid I don't know too much about it.

Sonny knew he could sell the part of the naive ingenue. Hell, he had _been_ the naive ingenue not that long ago, and so he knew the role by heart.

And Milburn was eating it up. He shifted to face Sonny and adopted a professorial tone as he began to explain.

"It's all about outcomes, really. There's a perception out there that the DA's office doesn't do much, and the things that we do, we do poorly. I'm taking it as my mandate to change that. We need to focus on quantifiable successes that we can sell to the public."

Sonny nodded, as if this attitude didn't fly in the face of everything he'd learned at SVU about the power of intangible outcomes. Surely the ability of a victim to confront their perpetrator in court was more important than a scorecard of wins.

"Well I'm all in to help with that," Sonny said with as much earnestness as he could muster. "Going to law school has really given me a new perspective on the challenges that the DA's office faces."

Milburn looked pleased with his response. "That's why I tapped you for this committee, Carisi. It's always helpful to have a detective who has a legal perspective. I was wondering if you could start out with some qualitative information-gathering."

"Sure. What kind of information?" 

"Take notes for me on the decision-making process at SVU regarding which cases get pursued for prosecution. How much evidence is there from the get-go, things like that. I want to know whether or not we're wasting our time on dead-end cases."

"I'd be happy to," Sonny replied, while taking internal notes for reporting back to Barba. Milburn was tipping his hand, showing a definite interest in curtailing SVU's operations. 

"Oh and Carisi, would you do me a favor and not say anything about this to your Sergeant for now? It's not that I'm asking you to lie to her - "

"No I get it, it's that there isn't really anything to tell yet."

"Exactly. Since NYPD can get touchy about any perceived interference from the DA's office, I'd rather not make a big deal of it for now."

With that, Milburn drained the rest of his coffee and hopped up from the ledge.

"Thanks for the chat, Detective. I think that we are going to have a fruitful working relationship."

He held out his hand, and Sonny was struck by his firm, no-nonsense grip.

"Well thank you for asking me to help out. I really appreciate the opportunity."

"Of course. By the way, I'm sorry for grilling you about Barba earlier. I thought I picked up on some chemistry between the two of you, but I must have misread the situation."

Misread it like an upside-down map.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll let you know once I've gathered that information you were asking for."

After one more thanks, Milburn headed back inside the building. Sonny figured he needed to wait about five minutes until the coast was clear for him to go talk to Barba. But the his phone started ringing with a call from Rollins.

"Hey what's up?"

"Where are you, Carisi? Liv is looking for you and she is not happy that you are missing in action."

"I, um, I got held up with Barba. I'll be right there, just cover for me for a few more minutes, will you?"

"Fine."

Debriefing Barba would have to wait for another time then. Sonny would just send him a quick text instead.

_Gotta run back to the precinct now, so let's plan a time to debrief the first stage of mission BOOKBAG_

The reply came quickly, and Sonny could almost see Barba's exasperated hands typing it.

_You don't have to use the codename in a text, Carisi. I'm the only one who uses my phone!_

_Better safe than sorry. Just tell me when you want to meet_

_Fine. Dinner tomorrow?_

_Sounds good. Over and out_

_Carisi, this is not radio communication for god's sake_

_Roger that!_

_I give up_


	4. Chapter 4

"I still don't understand why we couldn't have gone to the usual Chinese restaurant near the precinct," Barba grumbled as he and Sonny settled themselves at a rickety table. "I know the menu there, plus they have real table linens."

Sonny couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Well obviously we can't have a covert meeting at a restaurant we usually go to. It has to be someplace where no one knows us."

"Carisi, isn't this taking the spy thing a little too far? Did your parents squash your childhood dreams of joining the CIA or something? 

"Nah, it's just that I don't like to do things half-way. If we're gonna take on Milburn, then I want to do it right."

Barba just shook his head as he perused the menu.

"Plus," Sonny admitted, "it's fun to tick you off. Your nose wrinkles every time I make a spy reference." It was kind of cute, actually - or it would be if Sonny thought of Barba in terms that included the word cute.

"Ah so you admit that you like pissing me off, Carisi. Is that why you make your handwriting illegible on your paperwork?"

"That's purely down to bad penmanship."

"Good to know. Well, if you're making me eat here, then I'm going to pick what we're ordering."

"Be my guest, Counselor. But give the place a chance. Some of my law school classmates swear by it."

"Just the recommendation I was looking for," Barba muttered. He mellowed a bit, though, once the food arrived.

By that point, Sonny was summarizing the intel he had gathered during his conversation with Milburn.

"This is going to be a problem for us," Barba concluded, chewing on a spare rib pensively. "He's going to start telling us what cases we can and can't pursue, all to get his conviction ratio up."

Rerunning Milburn's words in his head, Sonny started to formulate an idea.

"Maybe there's a way to stop him. Milburn said that he wants to change the public's perception that the DA's office doesn't get anything done. What if SVU got some good publicity that reflected well on the DA's office. He wouldn't dare to interfere with us then."

Barba nodded. "Keep going, I like where you're headed. What type of publicity?"

Sonny hadn't thought that far ahead. Leave it to Barba to already be thinking of the next step. "I dunno, something like a public awareness campaign, or a law reform effort."

"This is good. Write me a memo with some possible options and we can narrow it down."

"Um, a memo?" 

"Yes, a memorandum, Detective. I assume that you're familiar with the concept?"

Sonny nodded. He was definitely familiar with the concept of a memorandum. More familiar than he had ever wanted to be thanks to a law school writing class. But what kind of free time did Barba think Sonny had, to be giving him writing assignments?

"How about a voice memo instead?"

"Carisi, Carisi," Barba mock-scolded him, "I thought you were all about following proper intelligence procedures. You should know that audio recordings are highly susceptible to falling into enemy hands."

"Well I'll see if I can fit a proper memo in between work, school, and sleep."

"In all seriousness," Barba said, "thank you for putting time into this. I know you're the newest to the squad, but you're really stepping up to look out for SVU."

"Thanks for saying that." Sonny found himself looking down at his food awkwardly, not exactly sure how to act in a social situation in which Rafael Barba was praising him.

If he were really looking out for SVU, Sonny reflected, he would tell Barba how Milburn had gone digging for scandal about the ADA. He had hesitated to bring it up so far; it just seemed a bit embarrassing. But he should be able to find a tactful way to phrase it.

"You should know that Milburn seems to be keeping an eye on you too. He tried to get me to admit that there was something going on between us."

"So he suspects that we're plotting against him?"

"No, it's more like he, um, suspects that you and I are, well, that we're sleeping together or something. He said that he thought there was chemistry between us."

Barba barked out a laugh. "There's more chemistry between me and this crab rangoon than between the two of us."

"I know, right?" Thank goodness that Barba also seemed to see the absurdity in the idea.

"We better not fall for each other, because we wouldn't want to prove Jeff right about something," Barba joked.

"Yeah, Milburn is one of the most obnoxious people I've ever met, and that's saying a lot."

Sonny thought back to Milburn's sneering comments about Barba the first time they had met, and his crude description the second. Suddenly he no longer felt hungry, and he began pushing his food around on his plate.

Barba seemed to take notice of his loss of appetite. "What's the matter, Carisi, have you realized that this restaurant is not on par with our usual place?"

Sonny glanced around to see if anyone had overheard.

"Not so loudly," he whispered. "Do you have to antagonize every eatery we go to? I can't go back to the hot dog cart anymore after you went off at the owner about mystery meat."

"Well I think it's a stretch to call that cart an eatery. Speaking of eating, if you're not going to eat that last scallion pancake, then I will take one for the team." 

And then Barba helped himself to it, as well as some more of the fried rice. As much as he threw shade at the food, he seemed to be enjoying it, if his empty plate was any indication.

"So what's eating you then, Carisi - something about Jeff?"

Sonny nodded. "I don't like the way he talks about you," he said quietly.

"Carisi, I thought I made it quite clear that I don't need anyone standing up for me."

"Yeah I know that. I get that you're a big boy and can take care of yourself, Barba. It's just that as a friend, I hate to see anyone disrespecting you."

"Well I appreciate the sentiment, but it's really not necessary."

Sonny noted with some surprise that Barba had not objected to their classification as friends.

When the check arrived, Sonny started reaching for it, but Barba was quicker. "Don't even think about arguing over it, Carisi. My treat."

"No really. I've got it."

"I insist, Carisi. I can't let you pay while you're putting yourself through school."

"Barba, with the amount of overtime I've been working lately I'm probably making more than you."

"Probably so," Barba muttered. "Be that as it may, I've got this. You can pay me back by writing that memo for me."

"Sure thing. Remind me of the objective again?" Sonny pulled a pen out of his suit jacket and prepared to take notes on one of the paper napkins.

"The objective is to come up with potential initiatives or projects that we can use to garner good publicity and insulate SVU from Milburn. Just please for the love of god Carisi don't fill the memo with spy jargon."

Sonny grinned. "You'll just have to wait and see."


	5. Chapter 5

**From: Staten Island Student **

**To: Ivy League Lawyer**

** Re: Operation Bookbag **

** I. QUESTION PRESENTED**

What are the potential initiatives that SVU could utilize as part of Operation Bookbag?

**II. DISCUSSION**

Agent codename Staten Island Student has prepared this memorandum under the advisal of agent codename Ivy League Lawyer. The purpose of this memorandum is to enumerate potential initiatives that may be used to garner positive publicity and therefore safeguard the independence of SVU and its cases. Such initiative is to be carried out as a counteroffensive against the designs of target codename Egregiously Obnoxious Ex.

As an initial matter, Staten Island Student suggests that it would save time and resources to repurpose a project that SVU is already working on. To avoid reinventing the wheel, so to speak. Below are two such projects.

The first project is SVU's support of the law reform effort to extend statutes of limitations. Reliable sources indicate that this measure will pass the state legislature. If we showcase the lobbying that we have already done on behalf of this bill, it might create sufficient goodwill to insulate us from interference by Egregiously Obnoxious Ex.

The second project is our collaboration on the creation of the city's human trafficking hotline. A press conference held by SVU, the DA's office, and our other partners would highlight this achievement.

As an additional matter, it would be beneficial to Operation Bookbag if Staten Island Student could shadow Ivy League Lawyer at trial. As the junior agent on the mission, Staten Island Student should be provided with opportunities to further his training. It should be noted that Staten Island Student has raised the prospect of shadowing on several occasions, but each time Ivy League Lawyer has brushed him off.

Furthermore, Ivy League Lawyer might consider providing feedback on one of Staten Island Student's law school essays. As Ivy League Lawyer has recognized, Staten Island Student has graciously offered to dedicate his free time to this mission. As Staten Island Student has no free time, this has actually created a time deficit, cutting into his law school homework time. For that reason, he would be most grateful for whatever assistance Ivy League Lawyer could provide.

**III. ** **CONCLUSION**

SVU should publicize its work on either the statute of limitations bill or the human trafficking hotline. Ivy League Lawyer should allow Staten Island Student to shadow him and should review one of his essays (though Staten Island Student actually has two essays to write this semester, but he doesn't want to push his luck).


	6. Chapter 6

"I've got to hand it to you Carisi, you picked a very cinematic setting for our meeting."  
  
They were paused on a footpath in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Manhattan skyline providing a striking backdrop across the water.  
  
“Thank you.” Sonny puffed up a bit at this rare praise from Barba.  
  
“Though next time we have a covert meeting, can you please choose an activity with less physical exertion?”  
  
There it was, that token criticism that Barba had to make sure to get in.  
  
“But we’ve barely been jogging - more speedwalking than anything.”  
  
“Well some of us aren’t as fit as NYPD detectives,” Barba retorted before taking a long drink from his water bottle.  
  
Realization set in that Barba must have been struggling with what Sonny had assumed was an easy pace.   
  
“Sorry, we can go slower. But why do you have fancy running clothes if you don’t even like running?”  
  
Sonny looked over Barba’s color-coordinated outfit, composed of layers of contrasting blues. Barba smoothed his hands over his designer windbreaker, as if preparing to defend it.   
  
"I like to have an outfit available for every occasion, even if I'm not going to use it that often."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"My yachting outfit, for example."  
  
“Of course. My yachting outfit is at the dry cleaners right now,” Sonny said with as straight a face as he could muster.  
  
“Really?” Barba asked in surprise.  
  
“Of course not!” Sonny laughed. “Can you really see me owning a yachting outfit, Barba?”  
  
“I guess not. But at this stage of your career, Carisi, you might want to start thinking more about your image. I believe that it’s important, in navigating social situations, to wear an outfit suited to the occasion. And before you say it, this is not just some residual complex left over from my days as a scholarship kid in the Ivy League."   
  
Sonny hadn't been about to say it - hadn't even thought it - but now that Barba had said it, it made perfect sense.  
  
“In any event Carisi, there are also functional considerations in putting together an outfit. For example, aren’t you going to get cold in what you’re wearing right now?”  
  
Sonny looked down at his t-shirt and sweatpants. “I don’t think so. I mean, the sun is shining and it’s pretty warm out.”  
  
“But the weather could change later.”  
  
“No offense, Barba, but I think you overanalyze things sometimes.”  
  
“None taken. Overanalyzing is a badge of honor for a lawyer. And speaking of analysis, I read your memo.”  
  
“Yeah? What did you think?” Sonny asked with barely concealed anxiety.  
  
“Well for starters, it was a bit bold of you to ask me to review one of your law school essays.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Very enterprising of you, actually.”  
  
Sonny gave an internal sigh of relief.  
  
“Though I’m setting a hard cap at one essay.”  
  
“Thanks Barba, I appreciate it.”  
  
“As for your substantive suggestions, I thought that they were good. Especially your idea of a press conference about the human trafficking hotline. I think we should put it into action as part of Operation Bookbag.”  
  
Sonny gave himself a mental round of applause for getting Barba to use his codename system. But before they could talk further, he heard someone calling his name from down the path.  
  
Sonny looked towards the sound and saw Saul from law school jogging towards him. Great. Just what he needed, the colliding of his two worlds. He raised a hand half-heartedly in greeting.  
  
“Hey man, how’s it going?” Saul asked while clapping Sonny on the back.  
  
“I’m good. Saul, this is ADA Rafael Barba. And Barba, this is Saul Evanston, he goes to law school with me.”  
  
“Ah so you’re the ADA who Sonny’s always talking about in class,” Saul said as he gave Barba an enthusiastic handshake.  
  
“Is that so?” Barba asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
“Well I wouldn’t say _all_ the time,” Sonny added. His could feel his face turning red at the embarrassment of Barba finding out that his enthusiastic hero worship extended beyond the squad room.  
  
Saul took a long moment to look back and forth between Sonny and Barba. “Now I get why you didn’t want to go out with me,” he said with another clap to Sonny’s back, this time congratulatory in nature. “Way to go, man.”  
  
Both of Barba’s eyebrows shot up this time.  
  
“No no, Barba and I, we’re not together,” Sonny hastened to clarify. Why did everyone seem to think that? “We just work together.”  
  
“Sure sure, whatever you say. Listen I’ve got to get back to my run. I’d love to stay and pick your brain, ADA Barba, but I’m training for a 5K, so you know how it is.”  
  
“Actually I don’t know, as I haven’t the faintest idea what a 5K is,” Barba said in all seriousness.  
  
Saul broke into a laugh. “This guy’s hilarious, Sonny. _Doesn’t know what a 5K is._ You’ve got to hold onto this one.”  
  
“We’re really not together. . .”  
  
But Saul was gone before Sonny could finish, running off in the other direction. “See you in class, man!” he called back towards them.  
  
Sonny started walking down the path again, at a brisker pace this time. Maybe if Barba were a bit winded he wouldn’t ask any of the questions that were surely now on the tip of his tongue.  
  
But true to nature, Barba didn’t stay silent for long. “I see I’m not the only one to have mixed business with pleasure in law school,” he said with a knowing look.  
  
“Nothing really happened between me and Saul,” Sonny protested.  
  
“No need to get defensive about it.”  
  
“I’m not being defensive.” As if the assertion itself weren’t a textbook example.  
  
“And I’m not a curmudgeon. Look Carisi, you don’t owe me any explanations about your personal life. I was just teasing.”  
  
“I know. It’s just that there’s nothing there to tease about.”  
  
Sonny couldn’t have explained, if asked, this vociferous need to make Barba understand that nothing had happened between him and Saul. But he felt compelled to continue, to make it 100% and unequivocally clear.  
  
“Last semester Saul and I hooked up during an end-of-midterms bar crawl. The following week he asked me out on a date, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I said no.”  
  
Barba gave a little nod, as if he approved of Sonny’s decision.  
  
“Just as well, he seemed a little young for you.”  
  
“Are you calling me old, Barba?”  
  
“No, how could I when I have a decade on you?” Barba asked, logical as ever. “I’m just saying it’s not a good look on you, at this stage of your career and life, running after twenty-somethings.”  
  
“Geez Barba I’m not!” Sonny hated being scolded for something that he wasn’t even doing. “I usually date older guys anyway, so give me a break.”  
  
“Hm. Interesting.”  
  
Barba’s face settled into something unreadable, though there was a hint of satisfaction, and Sonny couldn’t help but feel that he had just been subjected to some sophisticated interrogation techniques.  
  
“What’s with the interest in my dating life, anyway?”  
  
Barba looked affronted at the question. “Why in the world would I care about your dating life, Carisi?” he countered with some disdain. “I was simply trying to help you avoid making a fool of yourself.”  
  
“Sure, because it’s not like you’ve ever made a joke at my expense before.”  
  
Barba huffed a bit, and Sonny couldn’t tell whether it was from indignation or from being out of breath. Probably a bit of both.   
  
Sonny slowed his pace down until he brought them to a stop at a scenic outlook. They stood for a bit looking out at the water, until a breeze ripped across it. Sonny shivered in spite of himself. He slid a glance sideways at Barba, hoping he hadn’t noticed. But the ADA was eagle-eyed as ever.  
  
“Carisi, I told you that you would be too cold in those clothes,” Barba chided him, as if remonstrating an unruly child.  
  
“I’m not too cold,” Sonny insisted, right as another gust set his frame shaking.  
  
“You must have given your parents a run for their money,” Barba muttered as he unzipped his outer shell. “Here, put this on. It’ll help against the wind.”  
  
“I can’t take your jacket, Barba,” Sonny protested. “Then you’ll be cold.”  
  
“Ah, but I have two thermal layers underneath,” Barba said as he gestured to his fleece and turtleneck. “Still think it’s overkill to dress prepared?” he added smugly.  
  
“All right all right I give in, you were right,” Sonny conceded. He reluctantly took the windbreaker from Barba’s outstretched hand and put it over his shoulders.  
  
“For goodness sakes Carisi, you have to zip it up properly if you want to stay warm. Come here, let me do it for you.”  
  
And then Barba was pulling the jacket snug around Sonny and zipping it up with an unexpected gentleness.  
  
“Gee Barba, you must care about me after all,” Sonny said jokingly. And not jokingly at the same time, because he was getting the feeling that maybe the ADA didn’t mind hanging out with him.  
  
Barba blinked, then shrugged diffidently and turned to stare across the water at the skyline. “Well, I can’t let my favorite double agent catch a cold.”  
  
Sonny almost pointed out that he was Barba’s _only_ double agent. But then he remembered that Barba always spoke with precision, and so he smiled to himself instead.


	7. Chapter 7

“Would you like some bourbon, Detective?” Milburn asked, pulling an ornate glass bottle from the cabinet behind his desk.  
  
It seemed that an office liquor collection, like a coffee addiction, was an unspoken requirement for being an ADA. Envisioning his own hypothetical future office, Sonny was dismayed to see a keg sitting in the corner.  
  
“Sure,” he responded, taking care to sip the liquid slowly this time. He took the moment to mentally review his plan of action for this meeting with Milburn. Ostensibly, it was for him to give Milburn an update on SVU’s activities. Meanwhile Barba had charged him with gaining intel on Milburn’s plans. For his own part, Sonny wanted to do some digging into Milburn himself. The man must have an Achilles' heel.  
  
He spotted a photo on Milburn’s desk that looked like him with his parent and siblings.  
  
“Oh that’s nice that you have a picture of your family at work. Do you see them often?”  
  
If he was lucky, there would be some nice juicy nepotism waiting to be discovered.  
  
“They live here in the city, but we don’t really see each other much.”  
  
Maybe there was a scandal or falling out that would be useful.  
  
“Family drama? Let me tell you, I have some stories I can tell about my own family.”  
  
“No drama,” Milburn replied, showing a hint of exasperation between his teeth. “We’re just not close.”  
  
Well then. Apparently familial questions were not going to lead anywhere fruitful. Sonny scanned the wall behind Milburn for other leads.  
  
“I see you were a philosophy major,” he landed on, pointing at one of the diplomas in their heavy frames. “Did you like it? I studied criminal justice myself, but I’ve always wished I had used undergrad to sample something else.”  
  
“I really can’t say I remember all the details. I spent a lot of my time back then partying. You know how it is.”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” Sonny nodded as if he did indeed know how that was.  
  
“To be honest, I don’t think I could even tell you what I wrote my senior thesis on.”  
  
That piece of information seemed notable, and so Sonny filed it away for further consideration.  
  
“Now Detective, do you have any updates for me on the happenings at SVU?”  
  
“Gee, it’s been pretty quiet this week. Mostly catching up on paperwork for completed cases. We like to dot our i’s and cross our t’s over at SVU. But hopefully I can have something more interesting for you in future.”  
  
Milburn’s lips flattened into a displeased line. Sonny had expected that. But one of the first rules of spying was that you should never give away more information than you glean.  
  
“Well I guess I’ll have to do without inside information. I’ve been compiling my own case outcome statistics, and based on that I’m looking to take greater control over SVU cases. All the decisions about which cases to prosecute will be coming from the top down from now on. No offense, Detective, but it doesn’t work for the NYPD to be playing such an outsize role in determining which cases the DA’s office takes on.”  
  
_Have you ever heard of collaboration before?_ Sonny wanted to ask. Instead he nodded. “I can see your reasoning there. The two offices really do have different roles. That’s why I’m so interested in working at the DA’s office after I finish law school.” The last part, at least, was true.  
  
Milburn gave Sonny the type of smile you’d give a child who wants to sit at the adults’ table.   
  
“Well that’s a lofty goal. A word of advice though, Detective? It’s important to remain realistic.”  
  
“Realistic?”  
  
“Yes. Realistic. It’s great that you’ve enrolled in law school in your free time. But it takes a very specific path to get to the DA’s office. You have to do the right internships, get the right recommendations, and ideally clerk for the right judge after finishing law school. I assume that you don’t have any of those things, do you?”  
  
The question was rhetorical, not socratic, as Milburn already knew that the answer was no, no, and no. So Sonny just gave a little shrug. “Yeah I guess I should remain realistic. Wouldn’t want to get carried away with my goals.”  
  
Milburn nodded approvingly, as if satisfied that Sonny had accepted the limitations of his station.  
  
“If you don’t need anything else from me for now, I should be getting back to the precinct.”  
  
If he had to spend another minute with this man, he felt like he was going to vomit a little in his mouth. And more importantly, he had sufficient intel to share with Barba at their next meeting.  
  
At the appointed time the following evening, Sonny was surprised to see Barba dressed in a sweater and jeans. Jeans with a crease pressed into them, but jeans nonetheless.  
  
“I didn’t know you owned denim, Counselor,” he said as he let Barba into his apartment.  
  
“What did I tell you, Carisi, I have an outfit for every occasion.”  
  
“And what occasion would this be?”  
  
“Saturday night beer and pizza. So I went for casualwear.”  
  
“Hm.” Sonny considered the outfit critically.  
  
“What?” Barba demanded, eyebrow rising.  
  
“Nothing. It’s just, I don’t usually think of a sweater as being casual.”  
  
“And I don’t usually think of a giant poster of the Constitution as being wall decor,” Barba retorted as he took in the laminated document affixed to the wall above Sonny’s sofa.  
  
“I like to have it handy while I’m studying. I have the Bill of Rights hanging in my bathroom.”  
  
“Of course you do.”  
  
Sonny grabbed some beers from the fridge for himself and Barba, and they settled onto stools at the kitchen counter.  
  
“Cheers,” Barba said, clinking their bottles. “Thanks for having me over tonight.”  
  
“Well I did promise you that our next covert meeting would involve no physical exertion.”  
  
“And you’ve delivered. But I believe you also promised me some pizza.”  
  
“Right. Let’s figure out what we want to order.”  
  
Within half an hour they had pizza in hand along with fresh beers.  
  
“Now tell me, Carisi, what does qualify as casualwear, since you think my sweater doesn’t make the grade?”  
  
Sonny paused in confusion with half a slice of pizza in his mouth. Surely Barba was joking in asking his opinion. But the ADA was looking at him expectantly, and so Sonny hurried to chew and swallow. He put down the other half of his pizza slice.  
  
“Um, I’m not really sure that I’m qualified to be giving fashion advice.”  
  
Barba shrugged as he used a knife and fork to cut his pizza into neat, precise pieces. “Well, this is one area of fashion where I have a blind spot, and you seem at home in the casual look.”  
  
“Is that another thinly-veiled critique of my clothing choices, Counselor?”  
  
“No,” Barba replied, sincerely. “It’s just a statement of fact. Besides, when have my critiques ever been veiled?”  
  
“Point taken. Ok then, I guess I usually think of casual as being a sweatshirt.”  
  
“The last time I owned a sweatshirt was probably when I was around eighteen years old,” Barba mused. “I’ll have to look into getting one. It doesn’t have to be from a sports team, does it? That would be a step too far.”  
  
Sonny shook his head. Barba was missing the whole point by looking for rules where they didn’t exist. “It doesn’t have to be a sports sweatshirt. It doesn’t even have to be a sweatshirt at all - it’s just whatever you feel comfortable in.”  
  
“Yes but there are social conventions for these things. You said as much yourself when you told me that my sweater was a poor attempt at casualwear.”  
  
It was clear that Barba was not going to be derailed from his inquiry, so Sonny decided to just go along.  
  
“Ok. If you don’t want anything with sports on it, how about a university logo? I bet you could find yourself a nice Harvard sweatshirt that would go with your aesthetic.”  
  
“Yes, I think that would do.”  
  
As they continued eating, Sonny gave an update on his meeting with Milburn. He judiciously left out the part about how he had probed the EADA for personal weak spots. That hadn’t been on the assignment, and double agents weren’t supposed to go rogue.  
  
“Good intel, Carisi. I think we should move forward with scheduling our press conference on the trafficking hotline. It sounds like we don’t have much time to spare before Jeff puts in place changes to micromanage our work.”  
  
Sonny felt a little thrill of adrenaline at the praise, as well as at the prospect of plotting something important with Barba. But he also had a niggling worry at the inherent danger in going against an EADA.  
  
“Should we give Milburn a heads-up about the press conference?”  
  
“No,” Barba said decisively. “He might try to shut it down if we do. He’s going to be pissed off at us for blindsiding him, sure, but if we pull this off successfully then he won’t have leverage on us. We just have to find a way to alert the media without Jeff finding out.”  
  
“I’m on it. My sister Gina is dating a guy who works at the Post, so I can start there.”  
  
“Thanks for taking that on.”  
  
“No problem. I won’t even hold you to letting me shadow you in return,” Sonny teased.  
  
“Oh, that reminds me. I was just talking to a friend in the Brooklyn DA’s office who has a particularly interesting trial coming up next month. She said she’s willing to let you shadow her too.”  
  
“Wow, thanks for doing that for me.” Sonny was stunned that Barba, of the barbed quips and pithy put-downs, would proactively set up a learning experience for him.  
  
“Well, how else am I going to get you out of my hair, unless I foist you upon someone else?”  
  
There it was, the customary zinger.  
  
“Though honestly it didn’t take much convincing on my part, once I told her I had a promising future ADA on my hands,” Barba continued casually. “The DA’s office is always on the lookout for new blood.”  
  
That statement bowled Sonny over even more so than the shadowing experience itself.  
  
“You really think I could be an ADA someday?”  
  
Barba stared at him as if it were a ridiculous question. “Of course. Why couldn’t you be?”  
  
Sonny shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe I’m not on the right track.”  
  
It was a good answer - responsive but vague. The last thing he wanted was to run crying to Barba because Milburn had been mean to him.  
  
But he should have known that there was no fooling Barba. The ADA leaned forward slightly with his elbows on his knees, studying Sonny in the same way that he would a potential witness while probing their veracity.  
  
“Who told you that, Carisi?”  
  
“Why would you think someone told me that?”  
  
“Because you’re usually brimming with uncalled-for confidence. Now who told you that?”  
  
“No one. I swear.” Sonny silently apologized to God for the lie.   
  
“Tell me, Carisi.” There was a dangerous glint in Barba’s eye.  
  
“Fine. It was Milburn. Yesterday, when I was at his office. Apparently going to night school puts me out of the running for the DA’s office. I don’t have the right internships, the right connections, you know the drill.”  
  
“That little shit.” Barba took his phone from his pocket, clearly intent on giving Milburn a piece of his mind.  
  
“Don’t do anything rash!” Sonny reached out to grab the phone from Barba’s grasp, placing it down on the far side of the counter. “You don’t want to put all of Operation Bookbag at risk, do you?”  
  
“No,” Barba responded reluctantly. “But he shouldn’t have said that. It’s not true, and it’s not right.”  
  
There was a surprising intensity behind the words. As well as an undeniable irony.  
  
“What are you grinning at, Detective?”  
  
“You gotta admit, Counselor, it’s kinda funny that you constantly make night school digs at me, but now here you are getting upset when someone else does it.”  
  
Barba sat up stiffly, a defensive posture. “That’s not the case.”  
  
“It kind of is.”   
  
“Well I’m allowed, because I’m me and you’re you.”  
  
Stated as if it were the most obvious and straightforward thing in the world. Sonny found that he couldn’t disagree with the logic.  
  
“I guess I should be flattered that you want exclusive dibs on tormenting me.”  
  
“Speaking of which, I think I’ve filled my quota of tormenting you for the day. I should probably take my leave soon.”  
  
Sonny glanced at the time on his phone, surprised to see that it was already past ten. It seemed like they had just sat down together, and yet three hours had passed.  
  
“Yeah I guess it’s getting late. Thanks for coming over. And, again, for setting up the shadowing for me.”  
  
“My pleasure. Can I help with the dishes before I go?”  
  
Sonny almost said yes, just because the idea of Rafael Barba doing dishes was completely novel to him. But his mother would scold him for making a guest clean up.  
  
“Nah that’s fine, it’s only a few dishes anyway.”  
  
“Ok then.” Barba gathered his jacket and headed for the door.  
  
“Wait! Hold on a minute.”  
  
It wasn’t well-thought-out, or even thought out at all, but Sonny left Barba standing In the entryway to rush to his bedroom. He rummaged through his dresser until he found what he was looking for.  
  
“Here, this is to get you started on your casual collection.”  
  
Barba took the proffered article of clothing and unfolded it.  
  
“Your Fordham Law sweatshirt? Carisi, I can’t take this from you.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it. My mom’s always buying me new ones. You’re doing me a favor, really, by taking it off my hands.”  
  
In reality it was Sonny’s favorite sweatshirt. But Barba seemed to need it more. Honestly, it was sad that the man was going through adulthood without a single sweatshirt.  
  
“Thanks. I’ll try it out.”  
  
An hour later, a text popped up on Sonny’s phone. It was a photo, taken at an awkward angle, of Barba in the Fordham sweatshirt.  
  
_Casual collection approved?_  
  
_I think you need to work on your selfie game_  
  
_Harsh. I’m too old to know about selfies, give me some credit here_  
  
_I’m not giving you any credit for the selfie. But you get partial credit for pulling off the casual look_  
  
Barba _was_ pulling it off. He looked really good in Sonny’s sweatshirt, actually, in a way that took Sonny by surprise.   
  
_Only partial credit?_  
  
_Yeah only partial. That’s because I get some credit for picking out the sweatshirt and giving it to you_  
  
_Well gee, don't I feel like the high school cheerleader who gets to wear the quarterback’s letterman jacket_  
  
_Just like the quarterback, I only give my sweatshirt to the prettiest ADA_  
  
_*Swoon* now I can go to junior prom with my dreams fulfilled_  
  
_Hey I just realized I have photographic evidence that you secretly like Fordham Law_  
  
_Carisi, you show that selfie to anyone and I will kill you._  
  
_Ok ok I promise I won’t show it to anyone_  
  
But that didn’t mean that Sonny couldn’t save the photo to his phone, so that he could at least keep the photographic evidence for his eyes only.  
  
Barba in his sweatshirt. It really was a good look.


	8. Chapter 8

“Oh. My. God. You guys finally did it!”  
  
“Me and who did what?” Sonny asked distractedly as he stirred the gravy.   
  
“You and ADA Barba, you finally got together!”  
  
“What!?!” Sonny whipped around from the stove in shock. The spatula came with him, along with a stream of red sauce that splattered in all directions. He found his sister grinning in delight over his phone.  
  
“He looks cute in this. Less stuffy than usual. Though someone needs to fucking teach him how to take a proper selfie.”  
  
“Bella, stop going through my stuff!”   
  
Sonny tried to grab the phone from her with the hand not holding the spatula, which continued to drip blithely onto the countertop. But she managed to keep the it out of reach with the same skill her teenage self would have done.  
  
“Well you shouldn’t leave your phone lying around unlocked if you don’t want anyone snooping through it. Now why didn’t you tell me you’re seeing Barba?”  
  
“Because I’m not seeing him,” Sonny said in exasperation.   
  
“Then why do you have a photo of him wearing your Fordham sweatshirt?”  
  
The answer was complicated, to say the least.  
  
“Barba and I, we’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. His new boss wants to make some bad changes to SVU, so we’ve been plotting to stop him.”  
  
“But isn’t the DA’s office separate from NYPD?”  
  
“Yeah, but all the work we do is connected. The new guy, he wants to control what types of cases Barba can take to trial, and to limit the squad’s involvement in developing cases. He only wants easy wins. For example, he wouldn’t have brought Tommy’s case to trial.”  
  
Bella looked up from her investigation of Sonny’s phone, brow furrowed. “Well that’s no good. If you all hadn’t helped Tommy, who would have?”  
  
“Exactly. So Barba and I, we have a plan. We’re putting together a big press conference to highlight some of SVU’s work. If it goes off successfully, this guy Milburn won’t have any grounds to interfere.”  
  
“And what does Olivia think of all this?”  
  
Sonny hesitated in responding. This was something that he had spent no small amount of time worrying about.  
  
“She doesn’t know. Well she knows about the press conference - she gave her approval for that. But we didn’t tell her the backstory about Milburn. Barba didn’t want to involve other people. And I guess I liked the idea of having something that was just between me and him.”  
  
“Sonny.” Bella’s tone was equal parts warning and concern, as if she were channeling their mother. “Is this really the best idea, keeping things from your boss? And challenging Barba’s boss at the same time? Remember, this is the first precinct you’ve lasted at for more than a couple weeks. I don’t want to see you ruining a good thing.”  
  
“Yeah yeah, don’t remind me about my terrible track record. Look, the reason I’m doing all this is _because_ I’ve found a home at SVU, and I want to protect it. Don’t worry, I’m looking out for myself.”  
  
“Hm.” Bella sounded unconvinced. “Well let me know if you need me to take on this evil ADA, like I used to with those kids who bullied you at school.”  
  
“I think I’ve got it under control, Sis.”  
  
“Ok. But Sonny, this whole Barba thing - the fact that you gave him your sweatshirt, that he sent you a photo of himself wearing it, that you saved the photo - you’ve gotta admit it’s all a bit _intimate_, right?”  
  
Sonny shrugged. “I still don’t see it.”  
  
Bella finally put the phone down and slid it across the counter to him. “Look brother of mine, just don’t go putting your job _and_ your heart at risk, ok? And check on that pot, you don’t want it to burn.”  
  
“Crap! The gravy!” Sonny jumped up to vigorously stir the pot on the stove. He turned the heat down a bit on the burner. “I think it’s ok.”  
  
“Why did you want me to teach you grandma’s recipe, anyway? Between work and school, I don’t see how you have time to be spending half a day over the stove on any regular basis.”  
  
Sonny started to open his mouth, but then bit his lip as he considered. If he told Bella the truth, she would have a field day with it. Because the truth was that he wanted to cook for Barba for their next covert meeting. It would be a nice gesture, given all that the ADA was doing for him. But Bella would surely find some intimacy implied in that.  
  
“It’s so I can cook for the squad. People tend to bring in food for when we’re stuck working nights. I usually do takeout, and so I wanted to be able to bring something homemade. Like you were saying, I need to make sure I don’t screw up this job.”  
  
Bella’s eyes bored into him, as if she could see his thoughts. “That’s good, Sonny. But just in case, how about I show you the best way to plate the dish for two, for if you’re ever making it for someone at home.”  
  
Sisters. You never could hide anything from them.  
  



	9. Chapter 9

“But I have a Fordham library card,” Sonny repeated, as if saying it again would make a difference. He slid his student card across the reference desk to emphasize the point.  
  
Without even looking at it, the librarian slid the ID card right back.  
  
“As I’ve already explained, sir, the Columbia library system does not have any sort of reciprocity with the Fordham library system. You cannot check out books here. Why don’t you go to the Fordham library instead?”  
  
“Because they don’t have what I’m looking for. It’s a senior honors thesis by a former Columbia student named Jeffrey Milburn. It would’ve been written around twenty-five years ago. You keep copies of those, don’t you?”  
  
“Well yes, but as we’ve established, you don’t have borrowing privileges at the Columbia libraries.”  
  
The librarian’s tone remained neutral, but Sonny could tell from the way his fingers strummed the countertop that he was losing patience. Time to pull out the badge. Sonny had been trying to avoid going there, as improper use of his badge surely counted as a departmental infraction. Though he had already flashed it at the security desk to get into the building, so really that ship had sailed.  
  
“I didn’t want to mention this at first since it’s a bit of an undercover operation, but I actually need that senior thesis for official police business.”  
  
The librarian scrutinized the badge carefully. “Do you have a warrant, Detective?”  
  
Sonny leaned over the counter a bit and tried to muster a scowl, putting on his tough-guy cop persona (such as it was).  
  
“Do I have a warrant? No, I don’t have a warrant. What I do have is, I’m asking you nicely to cooperate with the NYPD.”  
  
The librarian seemed unperturbed by the act.  
  
“I’ve seen enough Law and Order to know that I don’t have to give you anything without a warrant. If you’re going to insist, I’ll need to call my supervisor. This is above my pay grade.”  
  
“Look, I understand I’m asking you to bend the rules a bit. But I’m desperate here, I could really use your help.” Changing tack, Sonny was pleading now, begging almost. It was proving difficult to carry out the good cop-bad cop routine when you had to play both parts yourself.  
  
But maybe it was working. The librarian was grabbing a pen and paper. “What did you say the student’s name was? I really can’t let you check out the thesis, but you can look at it here at the desk if you like.”  
  
The thesis turned out to be longer than Sonny had expected, a whopping one hundred pages almost. The small notepad that he had brought with him was clearly insufficient for the task at hand.  
  
“Excuse me, would it be possible to get a copy of this thesis, since I can’t check it out?”  
  
“We’re not a concierge service, Detective. You can make copies yourself it you like. The copier’s over there, fifty cents a page.”  
  
*******  
  
“Carisi?” Barba sounded groggy on the other end of the line.   
  
“Did I wake you? Sorry, I didn’t think you’d be sleeping yet.” It was barely past nine o’clock and Barba was a notorious night owl, regularly sending the squad emails at two or three in the morning.  
  
“I don’t usually go to bed this early, but I was up most of last night finishing my motions for the Perez case.”  
  
“I’m so sorry, Counselor. I’ll just talk to you tomorrow.”  
  
“Well I’m up now, so you might as well say what you wanted to say.” There was only minimal grumpiness in Barba’s tone, which was all the encouragement Sonny needed to plow ahead.  
  
“Great! What I wanted to tell you is that I found something on Milburn.”  
  
“Found something on him? Carisi, you weren’t supposed to go all private investigator on me. That’s stretching the spy paradigm a bit, isn’t it?”  
  
“I know I know, but would you just hear me out? It’s a bit complicated to explain, but I have incontrovertible proof.”  
  
There was a prolonged silence on the other end, but Barba’s eventual sigh signaled that Sonny had won out.  
  
“Fine. I’m going to text you my address. Call me when you get here, I might doze off again in the meantime.”  
  
The first thing that Sonny noticed upon arrival was that Barba was wearing the Fordham sweatshirt, along with a pair of burberry pajama bottoms.  
  
“See, I knew you had a soft spot for Fordham, Counselor.”  
  
“I what?” Still rubbing sleep from his eyes, Barba stared at him in puzzlement for a moment before looking down at himself and registering what he was wearing.  
  
“Oh, that. It’s not weird that I wore your sweatshirt to bed, is it? I know it was supposed to be casualwear, but it was so comfortable that I couldn’t resist sleeping in it.”  
  
“Of course not. I mean, as long as it’s not weird that I gave it to you in the first place.”  
  
“Why would it be weird that you gave it to me?” Barba was becoming more alert now, and Sonny realized too late that he had said more than he should have.  
  
“_I_ don’t think it’s weird that I gave it to you.”  
  
“If _you_ don’t, then who does?”  
  
“My sister. But she’s wrong. Because there’s not anything weird about it.”  
  
“Why on earth did you tell your sister that you gave me your sweatshirt?” The grumpiness was creeping back in now. Tired and uncaffeinated Barba was always a volatile combination.  
  
“I didn’t tell her, she was snooping through my phone.”  
  
“How mature of her. Here, come with me so I can put on some coffee. You can tell me what you were so worked up about over the phone.”  
  
Thank goodness, maybe the coffee would sweeten Barba’s mood. Sonny hefted the bag with his evidence and followed Barba into the kitchen.  
  
“Carisi, why are you lugging around a shopping bag full of library books?” Barba asked as he scooped heaping spoonfuls of grounds into the coffee machine.   
  
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Look at this.”  
  
Sonny pulled out the stack of photocopies of Milburn’s senior thesis. Barba’s brow furrowed as he scanned the title page.  
  
“How did you even get a hold of this?”  
  
“Better not to know.”  
  
“I don’t understand how this thesis is relevant to Jeff’s work now - it must be from decades ago.”  
  
“Plagiarism. That’s the relevance.”  
  
“Not entirely surprising. Jeff was a lazy law student, so it stands to reason he was a lazy undergrad as well. What did he do, copy someone else’s paper?”  
  
“Not quite. But he didn’t correctly cite his sources. I went through them all, and he just copied big chunks of text without quotation marks, as if it were his own phrasing.”  
  
Barba glanced between the photocopies and the bag of books, piecing it together.  
  
“Carisi, are you telling me you spent your day reading through a dozen books on seventeenth-century political philosophy in order to cite-check a twenty-five-year-old college paper?”  
  
It sounded a lot crazier when someone said it out loud.  
  
“Well I wouldn’t say it was all day. Though it did take some time finding all the books. They wouldn’t let me check anything out from the Columbia library, so after getting a copy of the thesis I had to make another trip to the Fordham library to get them.”  
  
“Look, Carisi, I admire your . . . doggedness, I guess is the right word. But I don’t think a poorly-cited undergraduate thesis is going to - or should - bring Jeff down.”  
  
“Oh.” Sonny could feel his cheeks redden. He shouldn’t have gotten so ahead of himself.  
  
“For one thing, while a minor plagiarism scandal might ruin an academic, it’s not going to harm a lawyer in the same way. Do you know how many salacious scandals the DA’s office has weathered?”  
  
“Right. Of course.”  
  
Barba’s face softened. “But more importantly, Carisi, taking someone down isn’t the type of person I want to be. And I don’t think it’s the type of person you want to be either. If Jeff were corrupt or were doing something dangerous, I would try to get him removed. But as it stands, he has a different outlook on SVU and he pisses me off personally. Though I sure as hell am going to fight to keep him from changing SVU, neither of those is a good enough reason for me to make personal attacks against him.”  
  
He was right, as much as Sonny didn’t want to admit it.  
  
“I guess that’s not the type of person I want to be either. I gotta say though, Counselor, that’s pretty magnanimous of you. I don’t think I could show that much restraint to someone who’d broken my heart.”  
  
Shit. That was another thought that was probably better left unsaid. Sonny seemed to have this problem around Barba of impulsively blurting out whatever was in his head.  
  
Barba poured the coffee with silent concentration, as if he were deciding whether or not to go off on Sonny for his impertinence. When the giant mugs were filled to the brim, he slid one of them over.  
  
“I don’t remember saying anything about a broken heart.”  
  
“You didn’t have to. I can tell that you used to care about him.”  
  
Barba’s eyes flitted up to meet his briefly, before looking back down at the coffee.  
  
“It was a long time ago. I know he’s over-the-top obnoxious, but there was something exciting about Jeff back then. Or maybe it was just the idea of him, and of us, that was exciting to a young me.”  
  
“Sometimes reality doesn’t match up to the idea you have of someone.”  
  
“Believe me, jaded middle-aged me has given up on rosy idealized ideas of people. That way you never get let down by them. One of the reasons I am perpetually single.”  
  
In that moment Barba looked tired, and not just because Sonny had woken him from a well-earned sleep. The lines on his face spoke to a world-weariness that made Sonny ache a bit inside.  
  
“I don’t think your young self was necessarily wrong,” he said carefully. “I mean sure you picked a dud back in law school - “  
  
Barba grimaced at the assessment, though he did not disagree.  
  
“ - but there’s something to be said for believing you can find someone who’s going to live up to your idealized ideal. Or even if they don’t live up to it, who is still good enough in all their flaws.”  
  
“Look at you being all philosophical tonight, Detective. Your heavy reading today must have rubbed off on you.”  
  
Sonny shrugged. “I just call it like I see it.” _And I hate to see you close yourself off to other people when you are the most vibrant person I know. _ For once he kept the thought inside his head.   
  
As Sonny sipped his mug of black coffee (apparently neither cream nor sugar was acceptable in the Barba household), he could practically feel the caffeine shooting through his veins. He gingerly pushed the mug back across the counter.  
  
“I think if I have any more of this it’s gonna keep me up half the night.”  
  
Barba shrugged. “More for me then. But Carisi, if you truly want to be an ADA some day, then we need to work on your caffeine tolerance. We’ll add that to your hard liquor tolerance.”  
  
“Why can’t I be the ADA who breaks the mold, and subsists on green tea lattes and zeppole instead of coffee and liquor?”  
  
Barba looked reflective. “True. You would be one to do it in your own way. And you _should_ do it your own way. Here, let me get you something other than coffee to drink. I think your options are down to milk and cream soda.”  
  
“I’ll take a cream soda, thanks.”  
  
Barba grabbed a bottle from the fridge and handed it over to him. Then he raised his coffee mug.  
  
“To doing things one’s own way.”  
  
“To doing things one’s own way,” Sonny echoed while clinking his bottle to the mug. “And to believing in the idealized ideal, flaws and all.”  
  
“Cheers.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Assuming all goes according to plan at the press conference on Friday, then this is the last covert meeting of Operation Bookbag.”  
  
Sonny looked up from his laptop with a sudden tightness in his chest. Until Barba’s offhand comment, he had been too focused on achieving their goal to consider what would happen afterwards. When this little world that he and Barba had built for themselves would suddenly vanish away.

They would still see each other at work. But Sonny had grown accustomed to all the new facets of his relationship with the ADA. Meals between just the two of them, Barba bickering over the menu options. Small talk about everything and nothing that could stretch for hours and feel as though barely a minute had passed. Barba at Sonny’s apartment, as he was now, shoes kicked off and feet tucked up under himself on the sofa.   
  
Sonny swallowed his feelings and offered up a muted response.  
  
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Though we might need a debriefing session. I’m sure any spy worth his salt does an end-of-mission assessment.”  
  
“Hmm you’re probably right. In any event, let’s not get ahead of ourselves and jinx the mission before it’s even happened. Where are we with the logistics and the programming?”  
  
“I’ve got it all right here,” Sonny said, swiveling his laptop towards Barba for inspection. “The order of speakers, which agency they’re each from, and which topic they’ve each agreed to cover.”  
  
Barba scanned through the first part of the document, nodding approvingly.  
  
“Nicely done, Detective. Who knew you were this good at making spreadsheets?”  
  
“What can I say, Counselor, I _Excel_ at many things.”  
  
Barba gave a little snort that was halfway between a chortle and a groan, lips pressed tight to suppress any evidence of mirth.  
  
Sonny let his own grin break free unhindered. “Admit it - you found that funny.”  
  
“You wish, Detective. What’s funny is you _thinking_ that I find you funny.”  
  
But Barba’s eyes were still laughing, undercutting his own cutting remark.  
  
“How about we have dinner while going over the rest of this? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”  
  
“Sure. What do you feel like ordering, Carisi?”  
  
“Actually, I’ve already got it covered. I just need to heat up the food. Why don’t you look through the rest of the spreadsheet while I take care of it.”  
  
Sonny had woken up at five that morning to cook his grandmother’s meat sauce before his shift. Maybe he was crazy to spend three hours cooking for a co-worker. But he felt compelled to do something nice for Barba. The ADA frequented fine restaurants, sure, but he seemed like someone in need of a home-cooked meal.  
  
As the spaghetti and sauce began to sizzle in the pan, Sonny sampled a forkful. It wasn’t quite up to Bella’s rendition (and of course couldn’t compete with Grandma’s original), but it was pretty damn good. Some fresh crusty bread and a side salad completed the meal. Sonny carried the plates out to where Barba was sitting on the sofa.  
  
“This looks delicious, Carisi.”  
  
“I hope you like it.”  
  
Barba closed his eyes as he chewed. For a brief and terrifying moment, Sonny thought it was because he found the food distasteful. But then Barba opened his eyes again, and Sonny could see the total bliss reflected in his expression.  
  
“Carisi, this sauce is fucking fantastic. You have to tell me where you got the food from. It’s definitely joining my takeout rotation.”   
  
Sonny swelled up a bit inside at the praise. “Um, I’m afraid you won’t be able to order it as takeout, because I cooked it this morning.”  
  
“You cooked for me?” Barba’s eyes widened in surprise.  
  
“Yes. Well no, not exactly. I mean, sort of.” Good God, how come he could never play it cool around Barba?  
  
The ADA raised an eyebrow at Sonny’s fumbling. “I had thought that was a simple yes or no question, but apparently not.”  
  
“Sorry. What I was trying to say was, my sister’s been teaching me some of our grandmother’s recipes lately, and I’ve been wanting to test them out. I thought this would be a good opportunity to do so.”   
  
The causation was really the other way around, as he’d asked Bella to teach him the recipe for the express purpose of cooking for Barba. But admitting as such would surely make him appear overeager.   
  
And if his legal writing course had taught him anything, it was how to frame your theory of the case. The same facts could be marshaled in different ways for different ends. Sonny’s theory of the case was that Barba was really doing him a favor by testing out his cooking.   
  
“Ah, so I’m just your guineapig then, am I?” Barba was helpfully adopting Sonny’s theory of the case.  
  
“Something like that. Though it seems like you came out of this culinary experiment a satisfied guineapig.”  
  
“Definitely. I will be more than happy for you to experiment on me with any of your future culinary endeavors,” Barba said as he took another bite.  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now, do you have any notes for me about our programming for the press conference?”  
  
“For once, no. You covered all the bases, and well. I think that we’re actually going to pull this off.”  
  
When they had both eaten past capacity, having worked through two servings each - two and a half in Barba’s case - the ADA somewhat reluctantly got up to go home. Sonny pressed a Tupperware full of leftovers into his hands, to reheat the next day.  
  
“You’ve already fed me so much, Carisi. I don’t want to take all your leftovers.”  
  
“Please. My mom always taught me you shouldn’t let a guest leave empty-handed.”  
  
“Oh. That reminds me.”  
  
Barba pulled a small, tissue-wrapped package from his pocket and held it out to Sonny.  
  
“Here. This is for you. It’s a thank you for the sweatshirt that you gave me the last time I was here.”  
  
Sonny turned the package over in his hands. The tissue paper was a lush floral pattern that had been folded into rigid order with a militaristic precision. Somehow it seemed very Barba.  
  
“You really didn’t need to get me anything, Barba.”  
  
“I know, Carisi. It’s just a token of my appreciation. Go ahead and open it.”  
  
Within the tissue paper lay a beautiful silk tie, in navy blue with delicate silver dots. It was perfectly exquisite and yet too much to accept, all at the same time.  
  
“Wow Barba, this is gorgeous. Thank you.”  
  
“You’re welcome. And before you say it, yes, this present is an indictment of your current tie collection. The lot of them are polyester monstrosities, and I will not have you ruining the visuals of our press conference by wearing one of them.”  
  
“You got it for me to wear at the press conference?” _Our press conference_, Barba had called it.  
  
“Yes. If you want to, that is.” Barba faltered a bit, clearly sensing Sonny’s reticence. “If you prefer another color scheme, I might still be able to get a different one in time.”  
  
“No, the colors are amazing. I just feel bad taking such a nice gift when all I gave you was an old sweatshirt. It doesn’t seem, you know, reciprocal.”  
  
“Well the sweatshirt isn’t all you gave me.”  
  
“It’s not?” Sonny wracked his brain, trying to think of what else he had given Barba recently. He’d bought the ADA a coffee a few days ago, but it hadn’t even been a latte.  
  
“Look Carisi, I know I keep saying I don’t need anyone’s help in taking on Jeff - and technically, I don’t. But it’s been a big support having you by my side through all this. So I wanted to say thank you for that as well.”  
  
Barba’s eyes were wide and open, a rare vulnerability showing in them. Sonny felt a compulsion to put him at ease.  
  
“No problem. I mean, dealing with your exes is the worst, am I right?”  
  
“Tell me about it.”  
  
“Hey, should I try on the tie, see if it works?”  
  
“By all means, though with my skill at picking out menswear, I think there’s little doubt as to that.”  
  
Sonny had already discarded the tie he’d worn to work that day, so he proceeded slip the new one over his neck. Under Barba’s scrutinizing gaze, he fumbled nervously with it, making a tangle in the process. The ADA tutted at his incompetence.  
  
“Come here, let me do it for you. Seriously Carisi, I don’t know how you manage to dress yourself every morning.”  
  
Barba stood on his toes to undo the knot and remake it. Sonny couldn’t resist his own little jab.  
  
“Need a stepstool there, Counselor?”  
  
“Stooping to height jokes, are we, Detective? I thought you were supposed to be wittier than that.”  
  
“Yeah I am _stooping_ to height jokes, because I’m so much taller than you.” Sonny grinned in triumph at his unexpected pun.   
  
“Good God, the jokes just keep getting worse.”  
  
As Barba worked, his fingers accidentally grazed above the collar. Sonny felt his skin tingle and burn at the contact. He startled slightly, stunned as much by his own reaction as by the sensation itself.  
  
“Sorry about that, Carisi.”  
  
“No worries, Counselor.”  
  
After Barba had left, Sonny stared at himself in the hallway mirror, thinking about Barba picking out the tie especially for him. He smoothed his hand over the silken fabric. Then he raised his hand to the spot where Barba’s fingers had brushed against his neck.  
  
And later, while he carefully undid the tie before bed, Sonny felt the phantom ghost of those soft but sure fingers against his skin.  
  



	11. Chapter 11

“And that is why the anti-trafficking hotline, with support from SVU, the DA’s office, and our community partners, has become such an important resource for victims and a key gateway to services and legal recourse.”  
  
The reporters’ cameras blinked and flashed as Barba gave the summation of the press conference. From his position behind and to the side, among the cluster of service providers taking part, Sonny had a close-up view of Barba’s impassioned call for continued funding and services.  
  
He also had a close-up view of how handsome Barba looked in his charcoal suit, perfectly tailored and offset with a lilac tie and pocket square. Sonny absently touched his own tie, the one that Barba had given him.  
  
After Barba had wrapped up, Sonny dutifully made the rounds thanking the other participants, as well as the reporters for covering the event. With the attendees starting to disperse, he navigated his way over to Barba.   
  
“Nice job, Counselor.”  
  
“You too, Detective, for putting this together. I see you wore your new tie.”  
  
“Of course I did.”  
  
Suddenly Barba’s eyes narrowed. “Trouble at twelve o’clock.”  
  
Sonny turned to see Milburn was striding towards them, his displeasure written on his face.  
  
“Rafael. My office. _Now_. You too, Detective.”  
  
“Jeff, I’m afraid that Detective Carisi doesn’t answer to you,” Barba said mildly, though there was a touch of vinegar below the surface.  
  
“I don’t care. I know he was in on this with you.”  
  
The chairs in front of Milburn’s desk were once again stacked with files. A thin veneer of dust covered the top, implying that they had not actually been opened for some time.  
  
Emboldened by the knowledge that Milburn’s bullying tactic was merely a prop, Sonny impulsively lifted the files from the nearest chair and placed them on the floor. He then did the same to the other chair, for Barba to sit on.  
  
“Excuse me, Detective.” Milburn’s tone was more shocked than angry. “You can’t just go moving things around in my office. You’re going to mess up all my files and I won’t be able to find anything.”  
  
“Oh. My apologies,” Sonny said innocently. The corners of Barba’s mouth lifted in subtle approval.   
  
Milburn scowled and began to pace behind his desk as Sonny and Barba settled themselves into their newly-claimed chairs.  
  
“Rafael, I cant believe that I had to find out about a major news conference involving SVU from a telephone call to my assistant fifteen minutes before it started. A _telephone call_.”  
  
Sonny had made the call. It had been specific enough to let Milburn know that something of note was going to take place, but vague enough not to give away any details. He was rather proud of his execution.  
  
“Jeff, I’d have thought that you’d be pleased the press conference went so well. Any success by SVU reflects well on you as EADA, so really it’s a win-win, isn’t it?”  
  
Barba spoke casually, as if he hadn’t just blindsided Milburn. Sonny could only aspire to such collected coolness.  
  
“That’s not the point, Rafael. The point is that there are protocols, there’s a chain of command. You’re supposed to ask me first before you go off and do some publicity stunt.”  
  
“You know what they say, Jeff, it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.” Barba gave a little smirk, clearly satisfied with himself for his reply.  
  
After a stony silence, Milburn sat down behind his desk with a smirk of his own. “Fitting. As I recall, Rafael, you always did love to beg.”  
  
Barba’s eyes widened and he lurched forward in his chair, clearly incensed. Without thinking, Sonny placed a hand on his arm to ease him back.  
  
“Easy there, Counselor,” he leaned in to whisper. “He’s not worth it.”  
  
Barba straightened his suit jacket, taking a moment to collect himself. He then focused his gaze directly on Milburn.  
  
“Look Jeff, I thought we could be civil about this, but you clearly can’t, so I’ll be blunt. Yes, I went behind your back. But it was because you refused to be reasonable, and you were going to take away our autonomy in pursuing prosecutions. What we did at the press conference today was make sure that the public, and your bosses, know that SVU’s successes aren’t always measured in statistics on a spreadsheet, but they’re real, and they’re valuable. There’s going to be pushback if you try to curtail our work, so I expect you to give us free reign from now on.”  
  
Barba stood up abruptly. Sonny scrambled to do the same, as it appeared the ADA was about to make a dramatic exit. It would definitely ruin the moment to be left behind.  
  
“If you ever think about fucking SVU over in the future, Jeff, you better remember that I’m smarter and cleverer than you, and I always have been. Come on, Carisi. Our work here is done.”  
  
And so they left Milburn with his mouth hanging open.  
  
“I can’t believe how well you told him off, it was so . . .” Sonny paused to search for the right word, one that conveyed the grandeur of Barba’s monologue.  
  
“Impressive?” Barba offered with a grin. He was practically strutting as they walked down the courthouse steps.  
  
“Yeah, impressive. You really did it, Counselor.”  
  
“_We_ did it, Detective. I think we can officially say that Operation Bookbag was a success.”  
  
“Yeah we definitely can.”  
  
Barba paused at the bottom of the steps.  
  
“I’m going to grab a latte for sustenance before my motion hearing. Want to come with?”  
  
There was nothing that Sonny wanted more. But he had some unfinished business to attend to.  
  
“I would, but I think I left my phone in the courthouse. I better go track it down.”  
  
Something like disappointment flitted across Barba’s face.  
  
“Honestly Carisi, it makes me wonder how you manage to be such a good detective when you’re so absent-minded. Go on then and find your phone. Are you heading to the precinct after?”  
  
“My shift doesn’t start until four, so I’ll probably take a break first.”  
  
“Ok then. Well, I guess I’ll see you around then, Detective.”  
  
“Yeah, see you around.”  
  



	12. Chapter 12

Sonny hesitated outside Milburn’s office, trying to muster up his courage. He counted to three under his breath and then, before he could change his mind, knocked on the door.  
  
“Come in!”  
  
“Hi Counselor, are you busy?”  
  
“Detective Carisi, I think we’ve discussed all there is to discuss for today.”  
  
“This will just take a minute,” Sonny said, inviting himself into the office. “I just thought you should know, that I know you committed plagiarism on your undergrad thesis.”  
  
“Excuse me?!” Milburn looked up from the paperwork on his desk, startled. “I don’t know what you’re playing at here, Detective.”  
  
“I’m not playing at anything. I read your thesis, and I read your sources, and I know that you passed off their words as your own.”  
  
“You cite-checked my thesis? Isn’t that going a bit far, even in service of your little crush on Rafael?”  
  
“I don’t have a - “ Sonny stopped abruptly, because he couldn't really deny it to himself anymore.  
  
“In any event, what I did doesn't count as plagiarism.”  
  
“According to the student honor code at the time, it does.” He was nothing if not thorough in his intelligence-gathering.

Milburn narrowed his eyes, as if he were trying to figure out Sonny's angle.

“Are you hanging this over me so that I’ll leave your precious SVU alone?”  
  
“No. Barba took care of that on his own today at the press conference.”  
  
It was true. Barba’s performance had been nothing short of magnificent. His magnetic and moving delivery had put SVU’s successes in the spotlight and ensured that the unit would be insulated from interference.  
  
“Trying to get me to leave the Manhattan DA’s office, then?”  
  
Sonny gave what was surely a Barba-worthy eyeroll at Milburn’s accusation.  
  
“It’s not really my style to sabotage other people’s careers.” Barba had taught him that. “I do admit I thought about suggesting you transfer to the vacant EADA position in Staten Island. But in the end, I decided that would be unfair.”  
  
Milburn grimaced at the thought.  
  
“I’m glad to see you hold some esteem for me, Detective Carisi, in spite of your insubordinate behavior.”  
  
“Oh. You misunderstood me, Counselor. I meant it would be unfair to Staten Island. I’m a bit protective, seeing as it’s my home borough.” Dude really needed to learn how to read the room.  
  
Milburn’s face was turning red now with barely concealed anger.  
  
“Detective Carisi, you have exactly thirty seconds to tell me what it is you want before I throw you out of my office.”  
  
Geez, maybe if the guy had stopped talking for a minute Sonny would have been able to get to the point. In any event, Milburn’s willingness to negotiate boded well for Sonny’s leverage.  
  
“What I want is for you to leave Barba alone.”  
  
A scoff. “I’m not about to give Rafael special treatment, Detective, if that’s what you’re asking for.”  
  
“I’m not asking you to give Barba special treatment. In fact I’m asking the opposite, to treat him like anyone else instead of trying to humiliate and micromanage him. I don’t know what kind of self-esteem issues you have that you’re still upset he was a better law student than you twenty years ago, but you’ve got to get the hell over it.”  
  
Sonny felt his whole frame tremble, a mix of pent-up anger at Milburn and shock at his own temerity. But to his credit, his voice remained steady.  
  
“You are so far over the line right now, Detective. I have half a mind to tell your Sergeant that you’re trying to blackmail me.”  
  
Milburn was surely bluffing, as there was no way he could tell on Sonny without revealing his own bad actions.   
  
“I like to think of it more as an insurance policy than blackmail. Just something to keep in my back pocket in case you try targeting Barba again.”  
  
“Some insurance policy. Like anyone would care about my undergrad thesis.”  
  
“Do you really want to test that assumption? Because I made a lot of nice press contacts while I was organizing today’s event. And I’m betting that on a slow news day, at least one of them would bite.”  
  
Milburn was silent for once, seeming to weigh the odds. Sonny decided to press his advantage and held out his hand.  
  
“Do we have an understanding, then?”  
  
There was another long pause, with Milburn reluctant to concede. Finally, though, he stood up and gave Sonny a perfunctory handshake.  
  
“Yes, we have an understanding.”  
  
“Pleasure doing business with you, Counselor.”  
  
Sonny was still trembling slightly as he left the office and navigated his way out of the building. It was only when he made it outside that he exhaled a sigh of relief, stunned that his half-baked scheme had actually worked.  
  
Going back to his apartment before his shift held no appeal. He decided to take a walk in the park instead.  
  
Mission complete.

He should be feeling elation at the unequivocal victory. But instead he just felt loss, a hollow emptiness that seemed to press against his ribs.   
  
Double agents were not supposed to fall for their handlers. Because that’s what this was, really. It had crept up on him slowly, inconspicuously. But the chats and clandestine meetings, the jabs and the jests, had wormed their way under his skin. And now the thought of no longer having a reason to spend time with Barba was causing a physical pain in his chest.  
  
Sonny picked up his stride, as if he could outpace his own thoughts. He slowed when he passed a pretzel cart, but for once it held no interest. Nor did the hot dog cart. He sat on a bench for awhile, next to an old lady who was trying to feed imaginary bread crumbs to imaginary pigeons. When she tried to give some of the bread crumbs to Sonny, that seemed like a sign to continue on his walk.  
  
Finally his stomach rumbled, telling him that even though his appetite was gone, his body still needed sustenance. After exiting the park, he grabbed a slice of pizza before heading to the precinct.  
  
The squad room was relatively empty, that rare quiet in the lull between shifts. Just as well. He wasn’t really in the mood for small talk.  
  
As he logged on to his computer, he noticed the corner of an envelope peeking out from under the keyboard. He tugged it out. _Detective Carisi: Top Secret_ was written across the top in a familiar scribbled script. His hands fumbled in haste as he opened it.


End file.
